If you want to look at the participation to performance ratio, the only sport in New Zealand that could come close to crickets level of underachievement is football, which is a much, much bigger sport globally.

Originally Posted by Bahnz

I need u like Henry Nicholls needs batting school
He was terrible in that series
I need u like Ross Taylor needed to be fit
He's way better than Henry Nicholls
And now all I can think about is your smile
and that ****** test series too
Losing to Australia sucked and I miss you

Ah okay, interesting. Saw the Knights named a minimum nine contracts. five more next Thursday.

Originally Posted by Flem274*

Taylor, Ryder, Williamson will be remembered as far better than any of those middle order batsmen.

Taylor already is.

Yep I'd AWTA. Guptill, Flynn, Williamson and Taylor certainly don't make me feel I've got a downgrade as a cricket-watcher from Horne, Bell, McMillan and Fleming. Our bowling clearly lacks two or three hardened and canny seamers in their late 20's compared to the Rixon era, so you can blame the injuries (and who knows tbh, maybe lack of sheer talent as well) of that Butler/Sherlock/Burtt generation for that.

The fact I can quickly think of two other reasonably near-neighbour sports that have suffered dismal declines in NZ's bid to remain relevant and competitive (golf and tennis), and the fact we're becoming increasingly reliant on 'imports' in those as well, suggests the problem runs much deeper than simply Justin Vaughan being an incompetent, market-led milquetoast, or any other single person.

One of my own theories is that back as recently as the 90's, England and many of our other rivals and benchmarks were still trying to pursue a conscious narrative within their sports, and across a number of them you'd have to say they've found the abandonment of this liberating tstl. Flintoff (or Lewis Hamilton, or Rory McIlroy...) will never write a newspaper column of the intellectual scope of an Atherton, but they wouldn't acknowledge a "prick" or a "negative loser" like Atherton as the ideal for anything, which has perhaps been the telling change.

Don't squander the gold of your days making a shrine of cricket videos, trying to improve the hopeless failure, giving your life away to the Blockys, the Devciches and the Weerasundaras! Surrender your devout little cricketing heart to the inured agribusinessman.

Nope, I just assumed that the more popular sport gets more players. And when you have a small population like in NZ the effect is bigger.

You would be right in some circumstances and wrong in others. Golf is our number 1 sport with over 400 000 people playing at least part time. And 138 000 people with club memberships.
Golf is far behind rugby in the country's mind in terms of general popularity yet more people play it. So this goes against your theory that the more popular sport gets the players.

That said, we have lost some cricketers to the game of rugby so the effect is there. But from my high school days you can play both at school and it is only when you leave school that you need to choose between both sports if you want to be a pro. If you are a regular Joe who plays club cricket you can play both rugby and cricket to your dieing day.
If rugby wasn't around I would hazard a guess we would have 10% more cricket players. It wouldn't be more than that my knowledge of cricket players is that they are quite "different" from rugby players. No one in my 1st XI was in the rugby team. More of them were soccer players.

Israel Dagg and some others did make the switch though so there you go.

Something needs to change and soon because New Zealand cricket is an absolute disgrace at the moment. Eighth in the test rankings and a long way behind the Windies, and eighth in the ODI rankings and about to be passed by Bangladesh. How in the world did it get this bad in such a short period of time? As it is, John Buchanan, Mike Hesson and whoever else actually cares need to sit down and face facts, we've stunk for the last few years, we stink now, we'll stink in two years so how do we make sure we won't continue to be the laughing stock of the cricketing world in the next three to four years. That's the question because there isn't a quick fix when it comes to this team.

MASS CLEANOUT. I jest, but I do believe a few of the older guys should be given the tap on the shoulder. If you're losing anyway you might as well lose with some younger guys AFAIC. Same with sub par cricketers, players such as Andy Ellis, Nathan McCullum, Luke Woodcock etc are a waste of time. You'd be better off playing guys like Jimmy Neesham or Corey Anderson, bat them at seven or eight and have them chip in with six or seven overs. Sure they might stuggle but their upside is as such that you'll reap the benefits in two or three years. Like Tom Latham why not take one or two other younger guys on overseas trips like the Windies tour and give them a game or two. What's the worst that will happen, we lose?

Actual "A" tours would help a lot too. How many have New Zealand gone on during the last five years, my count is two. Once each to Zimbabwe and India. That in itself just isn't good enough, nowhere near infact.

Firstly I think the right players are mostly being selected and there aren't any silver bullets knocking around in the domestic scene. As far as older players go, Martin will be gone soon and Vettori's role in the side will no doubt continue to be a talking point. In limited overs, agree there's not much point nurturing players like Ellis, though would replace complaining with NcCullum with saying it's about time to say goodbye to Oram (though he'll probably retire soon anyway).

But in terms of selection, I think we just need to keep selecting essentially the same group of players, plus any guns coming through at the right time (perhaps Henry etc).

Main problem though seems to be management and leadership. That's a much harder thing for us to assess from the outside, apart from saying that administrator/manager situation has been dreadful for last few years. It's ironic given all the complaining we did when John Bracewell was coach - it's kind of like getting rid of an African dictator and having great hopes for the future, and then finding the situation only worsens with infighting and factions and power plays, and all that's different is you no longer have any sort of stability either . Anyway, I think all we can do is hope that if Taylor is given some time with some decent support he'll grow into the leader we need.

You can make as many changes as you want, it won't change our performance on the field. We have average players and that's never going to change. The only batsman in New Zealand that is better than what we have in India is Jesse Ryder.